Senior Cloud Operations Engineer

Senior Cloud Operations Engineer

Denver, CO (Hybrid)

Simplesense builds, deploys, and sustains the Installation Resilience Platform that enables mission operators to rapidly adapt and respond. The Platform protects critical infrastructure from cyber attack while unlocking previously siloed information to monitor, diagnose, and improve response times to incidents. Our adversaries rapidly adopt the latest technology: we help defense users respond in kind.

Simplesense is a non-traditional defense contractor and prime on the Air Force's Installation Resilience Operations Command and Control (IROC) program, which is now expanding to five additional Air Force, Space Force, and Army installations from the one prototype installation, Tyndall Air Force Base.

Our team combines over 100 years of direct mission experience solving hard problems with 50 years technical expertise deploying DevSecOps, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure, giving us a deep appreciation for our customers' mission and end users' priorities. We build for scale, architecting and prioritizing technical work for long term sustainability.

Senior Cloud Operations Engineer

Location: Denver, CO

About the Team

The Data Insights Capability Team manages an end-to-end ETL pipeline that bridges the gap from on-premise Operational Technology and Industrial Control Systems to our advanced AWS cloud environment. The pipeline processes mission-critical data, feeding into cloud databases, data visualization apps, and GenAI-powered analytics.

About the Role

As the Senior Cloud Operations Engineer, you will play a critical role in the operational excellence of our hybrid deployments. You will oversee edge and cloud operations as part of the Data Insights team to ensure our platform remains resilient, secure, and ready for the mission.

What Success Looks Like:

• 30 Days: Successfully onboard, gain a deep understanding of our hybrid edge-to-cloud architecture, and take over routine patching and maintenance of the existing Kubernetes clusters.
• 60 Days: Enhance our GitHub Actions and CloudFormation pipelines with improved automation, while configuring and standing up the infrastructure for your first new customer facility deployment.
• 90 Days: Establish and instrument our core pipeline Service Level Objectives in Splunk, proactively identifying and optimizing data latency or reliability bottlenecks across the hybrid ecosystem.

What You'll Do

• Maintain, optimize, and scale our hybrid Kubernetes (RKE2) edge clusters to ensure maximum uptime, smooth local data extraction, and seamless scaling across customer facilities.
• Remediate and manage container security and base image vulnerabilities to harden our edge-to-cloud infrastructure against security threats and maintain strict compliance standards.
• Define, implement, and monitor pipeline Service Level Indicators and Service Level Objectives within Splunk to proactively identify bottlenecks and guarantee the health, freshness, and availability of our hybrid data streams.
• Integrate and automate testing, security scanning, and deployment stages into GitHub Actions to increase deployment velocity, eliminate manual errors, and shorten feedback loops.
• Architect, build, and deploy robust AWS CloudFormation stacks to provide highly available, repeatable, and scalable cloud database and data ingestion infrastructure.
• Lead and execute the technical configuration and validation of on-premise infrastructure and logical replication pipelines to accelerate the onboarding timeline and ensure zero data loss when standing up new customer facilities.

What You Bring

Required Qualifications:

• Experience:
  • 5+ years of experience in a DevOps, SRE, or Systems Engineering role managing production-grade infrastructure.
• Technical Skills:
  • Strong experience managing Kubernetes environments (bonus points for edge/on-prem distributions like RKE2 or Rancher) and configuration management using Kustomize.
  • Deep familiarity with AWS services, specifically infrastructure provisioning via CloudFormation and managing data/compute resources (EC2, Lambda, RDS, DynamoDB, Firehose).
  • Hands-on experience configuring log aggregation and metrics dashboards using Splunk, Cloudwatch, or similar..
  • Practical experience with container security scanning, patching, and maintaining a secure software supply chain.
  • Proficiency in Python, NodeJS, or Ansible to write automation scripts or troubleshoot pipeline friction.
  • Understanding of networking concepts required to support hybrid environments (e.g., local APIs connecting to OT systems, data replication to the cloud).
• Domain Knowledge:
  • Demonstrated understanding of managing hybrid edge-to-cloud architectures, with a strong understanding of how to securely automate and monitor data pipelines that bridge physical Operational Technology (OT) facilities with scalable AWS cloud environments

Travel: Ability to travel for a full week quarterly for team planning and client Program Management Reviews.

• Must be a U.S. Citizen and able to obtain a DoD NIPR network account and Common Access Card (CAC)
• Must have, or be able to obtain, a Secret Clearance.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working within DoD, Air Force, or Federal contractor environments.

Our Culture

At Simplesense, we value high-trust autonomy. We look for people who can navigate ambiguity and are driven by the mission.

• Safety & Innovation: You embed security and reliability practices into daily work to drive continuous improvement and mitigate risk.
• People & Communication: You invite vigorous debate and offer "kindly blunt" feedback, always maintaining empathy and assuming noble intent.
• Integrity & Ethics: You build trust by honoring commitments, acting ethically, and resolving conflict through direct, honest communication.
• Strategic Problem Solving: You focus on high-priority issues to create documented, and scalable solutions—avoiding shortcuts.
• Agility: You move quickly to fix small problems, learn from the past, and pivot transparently when the mission requires it.

Compensation and Benefits

Pay Range: $155k-195k per year. Compensation is determined based on experience, skill level, and location. We review ranges regularly to ensure market competitiveness.

Competitive Benefits

• Equity
• Medical, Life, Short-Term Disability, and AD&D insurance
• Medical travel coverage
• Dental coverage
• Vision coverage
• 401k matching

Our Typical Hiring Process

1. Find Your Fit: Your journey starts here. Explore and apply to our open positions to find the right role for your skills.
2. Initial Chat: A brief call with our recruiting team to learn about your background and answer your initial questions about Simplesense.
3. Values & Vision: A conversation with a hiring manager to discuss how your aspirations align with our mission and goals of the team.
4. Show Your Skills: Complete a technical assessment that reflects the work you'd be doing.
5. Team Interview: Interview with the team to discuss your experience and see if we're a great match.
6. Final Handshake: A final conversation to ensure we've answered all your questions before making a decision.
7. Welcome to Simplesense!

Simplesense is an equal opportunity employer committed to a policy of merit-based employment. All employment decisions—including recruitment, hiring, promotion, compensation, benefits, training, and termination—are made based on individual qualifications, performance, and business needs. We strictly prohibit discrimination or harassment of any kind on the basis of protected characteristics as recognized by federal, state, or local law. As a U.S. government contractor, Simplesense complies with all applicable equal employment opportunity laws, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA). If you need a reasonable accommodation to complete the application or take part in the interview process, please contact People Operations at View email address on click.appcast.io.